OUT OF TOUCH GAFFE: Wynne tells Ontario students without air conditioning to go to “another room”
QUEEN’S PARK – Today dismissing why thousands of Ontario students are forced to sit in class through sweltering heat because of a lack of air conditioning, Premier Kathleen Wynne shared her own tumultuous experience with the recent heat wave.
During Question Period today, Premier Kathleen Wynne revealed that she has faced her own hardship after being forced to move one of her meetings to another room because of a lack of air conditioning.
Unfortunately Ontario students don’t have the same luxury to just move next door.
Hansard exchange:
Ontario PC Leader Patrick Brown: Back to the Premier: The Premier quotes these great renovations and the Liberal caucus claps.
Here are the stats: There are 584 schools in the Toronto District School Board; only 125 of those schools have air conditioning—584 schools; 125 with air conditioning. Others have partial air conditioning or none at all.
Krista Wylie from the parent group Fix Our Schools said this: “If [the Premier], who I bet is sitting in an air-conditioned office right now, prioritizes our children as the future, then her government will prioritize our kids and start to look at our schools as the important infrastructure they really are.”
In the meantime, how can the Premier expect students to learn while they’re sitting trying to learn in unbearable classrooms?
Again, rather than attacking others, rather than saying everything is fine, I ask the Premier if she will mandate maximum temperatures for Ontario schools in the event of extreme heat, yes or no?
Premier Kathleen Wynne: I had to move a meeting yesterday from my office to another room because, actually, I don’t have air conditioning in all the rooms in my office…